The present invention relates to the field of cutters for printers. More specifically, the present invention relates to guillotine knife blade type cutters for a printer and methods of cutting paper media in a printer using such guillotine knife blades.
High speed printers, such as inkjet, thermal, dye sublimation and dot matrix printers are used to provide vouchers, coupons, tickets, receipts and the like (all generally referred to herein as “tickets”) to consumers. Such printers typically use a roll of paper media which is cut by a cutter. Different types of cutters may be used in such printers, including a rotary cutter or a guillotine knife blade type cutter. The guillotine knife cutters typically employ a fixed blade and a movable blade which is displaced in the direction of, and engages against, the fixed blade during a cutting action after the ticket is printed on the paper media. While such guillotine knife blades are generally simpler and less expensive than rotary knife blades, such guillotine knife blades are prone to jamming and difficult to service. It is also typically difficult to load paper into printers having guillotine knife blades.
It would be advantageous to improve the prior art guillotine knife blade type cutters to provide improved serviceability and reliability, and to enable easy loading of paper and clearance of paper jams. It would be advantageous to enable easy separation of the guillotine knife blades for service and jam clearance.
The cutting apparatus and methods of the present invention provide the foregoing and other advantages.